When Your Company May Need to Hire an Ecological Consultant

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An ecological or environmental consultant is a professional who is concerned with the overall composition of the environment, including the ground, water, air, and so on. Usually, an ecological consultant is experienced in terms of compliance, making sure that certain areas are safe and complying with local laws and regulations when it comes to contamination and other such issues. If you own or manage a company, especially a production facility or any type of company that may handle hazardous materials, note when you may want to call ecological consultants and the services they might offer.

1. After a cleanup

If your company has had a spill of any type of material, you can hire an outside company to clean up the residual contaminants from the ground, nearby water features, and even from the air. However, you may still want to call an ecological consultant to test the soil, air quality, and groundwater. This will ensure that the cleanup was done properly and also ensure that your area is now compliant with safe working condition laws. If you were to have your staff return to work before the air was safe or were to begin production again while there were still contaminants in the ground, you may face stiff fines and even liability lawsuits.

2. If you store materials underground

When you store any type of material underground, you would do well to hire an ecological consultant to test the nearby soil and groundwater on a regular basis. This can alert you to any leaks you may have in your containers or if they're not sufficient to hold your materials and may be degrading. Having an ecological consultant alert you to leaks early on can mean correcting the situation before it becomes dangerous to nearby properties and you face fines, cost of cleanup, and more lawsuits.

3. Green claims

Many companies today use green claims as part of their advertising or to be eligible for certain tax credits and the like. Green claims refers to claims that your production processes are more eco-friendly than others; this may include recycling, filtering waste, producing fewer emissions during a smelting process, and so on. An ecological consultant can review the green claims made by a company and their overall production processes and certify those claims. This can protect the company from accusations that their processes are not as eco-friendly as they claim and may also be necessary to file for those tax credits or other incentives.


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